Monday, January 18, 2010

Rain After a Dry Week.

Finally after a hot dry week came the showers. Garden has a good drink and even had hailstones falling in the back garden.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Harvesting Peaches, Tomatoes, Eggplant and Buk Choy

My eggplant (supreme) had at least a dozen of flowers but only one eggplant maturing so far. In order not to have too many seeds forming in the eggplant, I harvested it together with a bunch of tomatoes (did not wait till fully ripen this time) and a bunch of delicious crisp green buk choy.
I usually hang out in the back garden and the two tomato silvery fir out on the front do not get enough attention from me. One inspection one evening showed caterpillars tunnelling through the tomatoes. I wonder if they are cornear caterpillars because they do look similar to the other caterpillars I had caught. I left two attacked tomatoes with the caterpillars in a jar and see if I can see any moths forming.
Samuel helped me to harvest one lone ripening tomato :
And I had these harvested as well...more tomato silvery fir (almost ripe ones) and three peach (pixzee). Yummy!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Windy and 43 Deg Celsius.

As the blog title says, windy and 43 deg celsius. Thank God for weather forecasts, I have done all the necessary preparations (putting up shades, watering, weeding...) before today. Besides all the light colour tablecloths, white cloths, I even borrowed hubby's white shirts! This morning I woke up not having the anxiety of a charred garden but leisurely did whatever little things I needed to do. Prayerfully, no casualty when evening arrives.
Back garden.
Front patio and front garden.
Sweet potato creepers taking over the mulching around the golden sheens.
New candidate in the garden. I decided to plant Diggers' Pioneer bean stringless (above pic) in this empty pot of mix (where my daisies used to be). A black pot over them to create a dark environment and moist potting mix saw them germinating just in four days!
Under the netting and shade, my buk choy (purple) and buk choy (regular green) are growing well. One silver beet among them as well and the bitter melon vine on the trellis.
Two more silver beets growing next to the lemon grass and under the shelther of the grevillea tree.
Once again a picture of the four peaches on my peach (pixzee). Just cannot stop snapping a picture of them. Beautiful considering it is its first season!
One eggplant supreme out in sight!!!
Nellie Kelly's hot chillies growing larger and more coming!
One bunch of tomato silvery fir ripening! Very exciting as this year, I managed to get the tomatoes to grow larger and it is really successful considering this one is potted.
I picked this first ripened and large-sized tomato two days ago in case it gets too scorched by the sun.
Also picked a large bowl of common mint yesterday morning. Time for some mint tea and omelette.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Fruits of My Labour.

The four peaches (after doggy picked off the rest) on my peach (Pixzee) have turned reddish. They are still gettting bigger and not ready to be picked yet. The chilli (fire) which I bought from bunnings is really doing well after I treated it with fertilisers. Its leaves have gone from pale green and sickly-looking to dark green and it has put on flowers too.
My Lemon Eureka has grown taller as well and putting on lots of new leaves. The recent two tiny lemons have dropped off without getting bigger.
I planted the passionfruit (panama gold) right in front of my shed after working the soil and raising the area. So far no earwigs or weevils have found their way to eat its leaves. Hope that it will establish itself well here and grow :

Monday, January 4, 2010

Cucumber (burpless) Harvest #1

Three months after sowing my cucumber (burpless), it was time to pick four off the vines. It was a very satisfying moment for me. I have pickled the fourth one before snapping a picture. Here's the other three, all about 30cm long :
"All that mankind needs for good health and healing is provided by God in nature...the challenge of Science is to find it." - Paracelcus, the father of Pharmcology, 1493 - 1541